


Do Robots Feel More Pain than Dead People?

by riot3672



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Dubious Morality, F/M, Fluff and Crack, Fluff and Humor, Fluffy Ending, Implied/Referenced Incest, Jealousy, No Plot/Plotless, Psychology, School, Standardized Tests, this is better than it sounds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-07
Updated: 2015-10-07
Packaged: 2018-04-25 07:51:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4952383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/riot3672/pseuds/riot3672
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve is trying to gage general perceptions of the new Avengers through an age old psychological survey Natasha found. Pietro has zero interest in said exam, but when he has to rank pain experience and agency among robots, God, dead people, babies, dogs, and himself, he can't help but think about everyone's favorite android taking the test as well.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Do Robots Feel More Pain than Dead People?

Among the most stupid things Steve made new Avengers do, psychological surveys and experiments were 100% the worst. 1. They were boring, and 2. The room was so small that Pietro couldn't finger fuck Wanda to pass the time. 

"Thor, I already told you, this is for the new members," Steve said to the Norse god as Thor sat in a desk in the front row, like Wanda used to in school.

"I want to know where my answers fall in comparison to the Midguardians."

"We don't have enough surveys."

"Oh my God, Steve, let Thor take a damn survey," Natasha said. "We'll kick him out for the confidential part."

Not even the word confidential was interesting to Pietro anymore. 

Pietro raised his hand. "Hey, what's this survey even about? Are either of you qualified to administer these tests?"

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure behaviorism was invented in the '50s," Sam quipped.

Rhodey was the only one who acknowledged the joke, Wanda silent in that "what the fuck is behaviorism?" way, and Vision, Thor, and Bucky silent in that "what the fuck are the 1950s?" way.

"Just pass it out," Natasha said dryly.

The test had thirteen pictures along with the questions: Rank these things in order from most able and least able to experience pain, 1 being lowest and 13 being highest. Rank these things in order from most to least able to make conscious decisions, 1 being least 13 being most. The pictures were a baby, a chimp, a dead woman, a frog, a fetus, a woman, a man, a girl, a man in a vegetative state, a robot, God, a dog, and "you." 

The fuck?

This was some fucking morality test, wasn't it? Do you rate fetuses as less valuable than frogs or some shit like that. 

He wrote down "Pain" and 1 through 13. His first instinct was to put the dead woman at 1, but he had been dead and...had he felt pain? God he didn't remember. What if he had felt pain? 

Well, first off, obviously he experienced the most pain. Fuck that. "You" went to 13. He put the girl on 12, the woman on 11, the man on 10. Now he was left with God, a robot, a bunch of animals, a vegetable, a dead woman, and various stages of babies. God, he didn't know! 

He glanced at Wanda's paper, who pulled it closer to her. _Fine._

He looked to Vision, diligently taking his test. Did he feel pain? 

He picked up his eraser and chucked it at Vision's head. 

Vision reacted, but he didn't run his head like most people. Perfect. Robot = 1. 

He put the dead woman as 2, the vegetable as 3, the fetus as 4...but now he had a baby, animals, and God. Where did they all go? 

He stole Wanda's eraser and chucked it at Thor's head. Thor cried out in surprise, rubbed the back of his head. 

God went as 6, frog at 5, baby at 7, dog at 8, chimp at 9.

Now for list 2. Decision making. Well obviously he was 13, and as a dead person, the dead person could be 12. Woman at 11, man at 10, girl at 9, chimp at 8, God at 7, dog at 6, baby at 5, frog at 4, vegetable at 3, and...which could make more decisions, Vision or a fetus? Both were made against their own wills, both...

He'd put robot at 2, fetus at 1. Fetuses couldn't escape.

But then who had decided who'd come out of their mom's womb first? Obviously either fetus Pietro had pushed fetus Wanda aside to get out or fetus Wanda had pushed Pietro out first.

Forget that. Robot 1, fetus 2.

Naturally, Pietro finished much quicker than his fellow Avengers, leaving him to fall asleep and turn in a drool-stained survey to Steve, who frowned like an old lady.

Steve and Natasha graded the surveys, handed Thor back his results.

"I can think like a Midguardian! I must tell Jane."

And thus Thor left the room.

"Told you Thor wasn't with Vision. You owe me five bucks," Wanda whispered to Pietro.

Steve waited until Thor was gone to continue. Natasha warmed up the projector and showed an image of a chart, agency on the horizontal and experience pain on the vertical.

“Most people when taking this survey get these results,” Steve explained.

The pain chart showed fetuses and frogs with the least agency but halfway up the pain thing. God and robots had differing agency (robots halfway and God with all the agency) but no pain threshold. The dead woman, apparently, could experience more pain than the robot and God. Babies could experience the most pain with little agency (more than the fetus and frog), along with the dog and chimp. The girl, surprisingly, had as much agency as the robot but a pain threshold on par with the chimp. Naturally, man, woman, and “you” experienced almost as much agency as God with the same pain as a chimp. 

“Did we pass?” Pietro asked.

“This isn’t about passing,” Steve said. “It’s about measuring how much you guys deviate from the norm here. Nat and I feel like it might determine who you guys might be more willing to save in a disaster.”

“Aren’t we supposed to save everyone?” Vision asked.

“Yes Vision.”

Pietro bet he hadn’t even ranked everyone, just said everyone had the same agency and pain threshold. 

“So, are we supposed to fix something?” Sam asked.

“Well, for instance,” Steve glanced up at Pietro and Wanda. “These two ranked a dead body as having above average agency and pain experience. In fact, one of you put the dead body as the second most likely to experience pain.”

“Were you ever dead, Steve? I don’t think so!” Pietro protested.

“He _had_ agency! He talked to me on a daily basis about it,” Wanda added.

“You guys, we’re referring to a dead body. Not a soul. Based on that logic, you two would be inclined to save dead bodies instead of—”

“Instead of what? Frogs? Yeah, considering if someone hadn’t saved my dead body, I would still be dead,” Pietro said.

“He has a point,” Rhodey said.

“Fine. Whatever. We’ll talk about your giving no agency to robots and placing God midway down the agency scale later. Sam, all the animals on the list have higher pain experience than the humans.”

“Have you ever nursed Redwing back to health?” Sam retorted.

“Bucky, you ranked everything as having a two on the agency scale and a three on the pain scale.”

“I’m still undoing my programming, okay?” Bucky protested.

Steve glanced up. “Rhodey, you did pretty normally.”

Rhodey crossed his arms, nodded. “Damn right I did.”

“Wanda, you…well, aside from ranking the dead woman so high, you…put the robot at the most agency. You put “you” at midway down.”

“You’ve met Ultron and Vision and you’re telling me they don’t have an unnatural amount of agency?” Wanda said.

“But you?”

“Wanda, you practically are a god. At least put you one rung above fucking _Ultron,_ ” Pietro said.

“Also…robots have a eight on pain experience?”

“Vision hurts. On the inside,” Wanda said.

What?

“This is physical pain,” Steve said.

“Who hurts less than robots?” Pietro found himself asking. “Babies? Fetuses? Dogs?”

“Can I redo this?” Wanda asked. “I thought it was emotional pain and put robots above babies and the vegetable man.”

“Same,” Sam said.

“Who put God midway down on agency?” Rhodey asked.

Everyone pointed to Pietro.

“I based all my answers off of Thor,” Pietro said.

“It was supposed to be God. Like, the Lord,” Steve said.

“ _Chata,_ ” Wanda said, hiding a smile as she ran her right index finger over her left in a shame motion.

Steve took a deep breath. “ _Anyway_ , we just want to get across the concept that people come first in our saving situations—”

“If it’s between an asshole human and a really great dog, though?” Pietro said.

“Choose the human.”

“If it’s between Vision and a whole crate of live fetuses?”

“What?”

“I would prefer you to save the fetuses,” Vision said. “If they were expected to make it to life.”

Wanda smiled.

“When is that ever gonna happen?” Rhodey said. 

“What about a baby or a pregnant woman?” Pietro asked.

“You guys—”

“What about Clint or a civilian kid?”

“Didn’t you already make that choice?” Bucky said.

“I wouldn’t make it again,” Pietro said.

“Pietro!” Steve chastised.

“Wanda is me. I ranked me highest for a reason.”

There was a long pause as Steve appeared to be feigning a heart attack that was twenty years too late.

“Okay, we’re done with this exercise. Here’re the average results. Let’s all just stew in how messed up you all are,” Steve said.

“Not Rhodey,” Pietro said.

Rhodey nodded.

Steve glanced at Natasha. “Except Rhodey.”

Steve changed subject and continued to drone on about something else that Pietro didn’t care about, and he couldn’t forget how high Wanda had ranked Vision. How did she know Vision had inner pain? Did they talk more than he thought? Had they talked while he was dead? He knew she had talked to him for a vast majority of his time dead, but what if she’d been with him otherwise? The idea made him sick.

Sometime in the lecture, Wanda wrapped her pinky around his under the table.

“Don’t be jealous, ‘tro,” she whispered as Steve looked away.

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, I totally came up with this in my introduction to psychology course. It's a real survey and the results Steve shows are real.


End file.
